"Do Something About It!"

I'm not for resolutions of the New Year's variety. But I am very aware of a few things that need to be changed in my life. Last night I started cleaning the house after Tom and I had a movie night with the kids. I started scrubbing the tub and my knee as usual was in pain and feeling like it didn't want to bend. I finally get my joints working only to have to get back up and proceed to limp around. Tom just so happened to be standing behind me as I was going through the motions.

He finally says: "What is wrong with you, your knees, your elbows, it's always something."
To which I replied: "I'm too fat combined with getting older and it's killing my joints."
T: "Then do something about it, go on a diet."
Me: "I plan on it I just don't know what I want to do."

The truth is for the past month I've really been psyching myself up to pick a plan and stick to it. The fear of failing has left me with reservations on getting started on my endeavors.

I'm about 80% sure of the path I want to take to lose weight. I know enough that a diet alone is not going to save me. If that were the case I'd have been skinny years ago. My battle is of the mental variety and once I get done making excuses and telling myself I'll not make it; I'll be able to get something done. What I need most from others is support and kindness and not everyone in my life offering me "good advice." I really dislike when people try to help me lose weight as weird as that may seem. If I tell someone I lost five pounds the last thing I want to hear is "ooh, I have a recipe for sugar free cookies" or any other "healthy" item. As nice is that is to share a recipe; I don't want your recipe. I'd rather have a kind/encouraging word or silence.

I've come to realize I am highly addicted to junk and because of that, changing the way I eat feels like a never ending battle. I crave crappy food and when I'm trying to rid myself of sugar/sweets/junk I don't want any substitutions. By eating the substitutions I'm still allowing my body to crave sweets/junk thus prolonging a seemingly unending cycle to just stop craving them altogether. I need to eat healthy and I don't want sugar-free, fat-free, low-sodium processed substitutions to get me through it.

This year is going to be about discipline and perseverance. I will train myself to stick to this even when I really don't want to.

the end of 2012

I'm glad to see this year come to an end.

It's been hard for me to blog the past two months. For one reason we've been uber busy and the other reason is that I find myself wanting to rant about things and people who have aggravated me and I really don't want to be "that" person.

Hannah's class took a field trip to Coleman's Christmas Tree farm and I got to be a chaperon (yay!). So fun and has prompted me to add this to the to-do list at some point for our family. The trees are gorgeous, by far the best I've seen in our itty bitty state.

We celebrated Carter's birthday with the Fam. I can't believe he is 3!!! He played with his birthday presents for a solid two weeks non-stop for hours at a time. I'm glad he is at the age where he really enjoyed his birthday.

This is the first Christmas in at least five years that Tom has not had to work! It was so nice. We did presents with the kids and presents with family and had a delicious dinner; it was overall an awesome day.

It even snowed a couple of days after Christmas which for Delaware is most often as close as you'll get to having a "White Christmas."

To cap off the adventures of 2012 I had the treat of meeting up with my oldest and best friends for a much needed night out. Love this bunch :)

my sweet October

My favorite month has come and gone. Bittersweet. Last October was spent on bed rest so this October I had planned to live it up as much as possible.

I got to take Hannie on her second field trip with school. This year it was to Milburn Orchards. It was really cool to see a "behind the scenes" view of the orchard we frequent often. I also discovered that Rome apples are pretty tasty!

The next day was my birthday so we decided to take the kids to Fifer Orchards, a little bit farther away and see what that was all about. Picking apples was a lot of fun and the first time any of us had done so. We will definitely be doing that every year. The apples at this orchard were not very tasty, not sure if that was a fluke or if that is the norm. The "Harvest Festival" was pretty fun and the kids really enjoyed all the activities.

After the orchard we dropped the kids with my mom and headed to Philly. We stayed midtown so we were able to walk the city and had a lot of fun. While there we visited Reading Terminal Market and Old City among other places. It was so nice to get away for a couple weekend.

We finally bought a new van, hooray!

The girls (baby boys) and I then drove said van to Lancaster and enjoyed the day at Shady Maple and the Outlets. Always a good time and we some how managed to pack an epic amount of pumpkins in the trunk, it was comical to say the least.

We had another hurricane this year, last year it was Irene and I think was in August. This time it was Sandy and it did not hit Delaware as bad as originally suggested; New York and New Jersey are a different story. We made out nearly unscathed, as with the last hurricane our ceiling leaked in the entry. Not sure if what we did to fix it was undone by this storm or if it was not fixed like we had thought. What can you do, it could have always been worse.

Tonight trick or treating is still on despite the storm and I'm looking forward to taking my Minnie's and Mickey out to collect their treats. A nice way to end being cooped up in the house the past four days.

the september run-down

Amelia is walking and has nearly seven teeth!

Hannah enjoyed her first day of Pre4 and really enjoys going to school every day. We've even had some homework this year as preparation for Kindergarten and she thinks that is awesome. I can see now Hannah is going to be just like me in school...good.

I'm in the process of switching our house over to organic/whole/natural foods as much as possible. It will be a little bit of a slow process since somethings are easy to switch like milk and eggs and other things with a longer pantry life will be switched later when it finally runs out. The kids haven't seemed to notice which is a good thing in my book!

September proved to be quite the month of medical treatments which spilled into October.  I had my nose cauterized for the second time due to excessive nose bleeds. Carter had his face looked at and allergy testing done. I had my blood work done and found out my thryroid is off and my meds needed adjusting. Then to cap it all off I finally got my elbow looked at by my primary doctor who was plumb useless. Finally saw an orthopaedic doctor and was diagnosed with severe tennis elbow (tendinitis) and received a cortisone shot.

A few more fun things included a trip to the circus, it was the first time for Hannah and I. Hannah loved it so much she still talks about it:

And a night out with my favorite ladies to celebrate Emily's birthday:

I am looking foward to all that October holds :)

A Distant Memory

Way back in 2007 not long before I found out I was pregnant with Hannah I wrote a blog entry. It was back during a time when I was really, really, really struggling with infertility and I needed answers. I had switched to a new reproductive endocrinologist. On staff he had a nutritionist named Rhonda and she was so sweet and so smart and her insight led me to change my eating habits, lose a bit over thirty pounds and become pregnant with my Hannie.

I still to this day look back on Rhonda and just love that woman for all that she did to help educate me. At one point she took me and another woman suffering with PCOS to the grocery store and we took a food tour of what to eat and what not to eat. It was insanely insightful and incredibly awesome of her to spend her Saturday morning walking the grocery aisles educating me.

Somewhere along the way I stopped doing what she taught me and have definitely paid the price for it. So friends I will bestow some knowledge (copied from the blog entry five years ago) on you that i have put on the back burner but am ready to try anew.

• Only eat wild caught fish, do not eat farm raised fish
• Eat only organic meats, other meat has too many hormones
• Eat organic fruits and vegetables
• No lunch meat it has too much sodium
• Nothing that comes from a bag or a box
• If ”it” can be prepared at home you should do that instead of buying all ready prepared from the store
• Eat pasta and rice sparingly
• She recommended eating shredded wheat for a snack
• She also recommended Kashi Pilaf as a side item for lunch or dinner
• Essentially if it is organic that is what I should buy
• Do not eat anything sugar free

I have really been struggling with losing weight since the birth of Amelia and my confidence in myself is mostly to blame. I think it's about time to pick myself up by the boot straps and start over. By God if this doesn't work I'm giving up and doing gastric bypass ;)

Little Boy Red

The nearly summer long "rash" has turned out to be eczema. The doctor said that it may go away on it's own with time. I really hope it's something that he grows out of since it is directly on his face and looks more like rosacea to me. The doctor we visited today did two allergy panels on him for both environmental and food allergens and he came back negative for all of them. He never scratches or picks at his face so that will be helpful in the long run with any potential scarring.

The doctor advised us to use plain dove soap and a cream called Formula II and not to take hot baths. He also said we should give him 1/2 tsp of Zyrtec everyday which I didn't understand since it's not from an allergen. Along with the skin care products we'll be switching to fragrance/dye free laundry detergents as well. Wish us luck in this new transition!

My poor boys face:

 

Hello Lover...

I foolishly perused the coach online outlet and discovered this:

I am now smitten and wishing I had some reason to justify it's purchase. Well a reason and some extra money ;)